Back in July, I got it into my head that I needed plushies of Laurel and Hardy, and so being the adult I am I went and commissioned them (from Kaxen, who makes great plushies if you want plushies of anyone too!), and on Monday they finally arrived at my house.

So there are lots of pictures already.

She actually draws on the packaging she ships her plushies in, so it’s even cuter!

I made sure they were cozy during their first night in my house…

…and when I ran off to class the next day, because my bedroom can get pretty chilly.

They’re about nine inches or so tall.

I was suffering from writer’s block on a grad school paper this week, so I made Stannie help and gave him some fudge. Except he doesn’t have a mouth, so I had to eat it for him.

The other night we watched a Vincent Price marathon on TCM, but we were doing so after midnight so it got pretty scary.

And now they’re at work with me right now – they were all buckled up during the commute! (Babe may have bed head, though. Whoops.)

They’re all snug in my saddle bag at the moment since I’m at work, but I just felt like having some extra company on the car ride today because having them around has actually reduced my stress by a ton and they’re just so, so cute.

“This is very encouraging,” Burnett deadpanned in accepting the prize. “I mean it was a long time in coming, but I understand because there are so many people funnier than I am, especially here in Washington.

“With any luck, they’ll soon get voted out, and I’ll still have the Mark Twain prize.”

I’m definitely in an outtakes mood today, but these are absolutely worth sharing, as well.

Young Frankenstein is one of my favorite Mel Brooks movies (and that’s saying something because Mel Brooks has never made a bad movie ever). I love his writing and his brilliant parody work and the cinematography…and, well, everything. And yes, there are extant outtakes from the filming.

In my webcomic Comedian Heaven, the cast lives in a comfortable suburb of a large, flashy city, which is where the serious actors live. They refer to the city as Serious Actor Heaven and the two locations share a massive studio complex on the border. (The screwball actors live in a pocket in between which is colloquially referred to as “Semi-Serious Actor Heaven.” These are some of the best writers in history and that’s what they came up with. Yep.)

As it were, I stumbled upon a massive compilation of the Warner blooper reels from the 1930s and 1940s on YouTube, and it’s fun to see the dramatic actors goofing off when they flub lines and dealing with various mishaps on set. More than a few of them might have just been able to make it in comedy had they given it a try…

A few nights ago, I watched Lou Costello’s turn on This Is Your Life. I’ve previously watched the episodes featuring Laurel and Hardy and Buster Keaton, and as usual the show did its level best to be traumatizing by bringing up memories that nobody wants to remember. In these two cases, they mentioned Ollie’s brother drowning when they were kids and Buster’s struggles during the middle years of his life, and in Lou Costello’s case, they went and did an entire section of the show about the drowning of his son, Butch. I really hate how insensitive this show could be; they also featured a Hiroshima survivor and a Holocaust survivor at one point. “You survived a really traumatic experience? Let’s relieve it on national TV for everyone’s amusement!”

The rest of Lou’s episode, however, is charming, and it’s nice to see him and Bud Abbott on good terms since they had periods wherein they didn’t get along too well over the course of their careers together. It’s also especially relevant to me as a resident of New Jersey who lives within half an hour of Paterson, Lou’s hometown – I love learning about my own state’s history, and the little tidbits about life in Paterson that can be gleamed from watching this are really neat.

Here’s the video! If you don’t want to hear about Butch, as I’m sure Lou and his wife didn’t, you can skip over that part and nobody will blame you.